When I got there, a fairly large union crowd was gathering in the plaza. These were a few of the people down by the street, waving signs at the cars going by. I think by the time the program started there were several hundred people in the plaza. They were there to expose Palo Alto's "dirty little secret", the fact they are exploiting their temporary workers, some of whom have been working for the city for many years.

   

I've been told that so far, Juarez was the only Native American elected President of Mexico. He was their President in the same general time frame Abraham Lincoln was the President of the United States. That T-Shirt was the Union Latino caucus one, with a very Native American looking front.

They gave everybody one of these "NEGOTIATE NOW" stickers when they signed in. I took this picture of mine as part of putting together this page, days later.

     

Most of the people there were in the purple SEIU T-Shirts, with an assortment of styles that gave the impression they come out with a new design every year or two, but everybody wears one of them to events like this where they all stand together.



We began the organized part of the event by marching in circles chanting for a while. The chant sheet gives you a good idea what we sounded like. Click above to see that. There was lots of "RAH!, RAH!, RAH!" solidarity to it. After doing that, I would say the group was a bit more bonded.

  

Annie was the MC. She began by turning the microphone over to the Raging Grannies, who sang some Union songs. Stuff with lines like "you can't scare me, I'm sticking with the Union."  Then she explained that she is one of the Temps that got the right to bargain as a union last fall, and that it has been seven months of tough negotiations since then. She said the City has been no fun to sit across the table from, but they are still at it. Then she introduced a series of other speakers.

        

Dana is a Green Party activist that has been sitting in on the negotiations as a member of the public. She told of the time the City had kicked her out of the meeting. She said that she would continue to support the Temps because it was the right thing to do.
Maya is a Palo Alto Union Member that works side by side with temps. She talked about what it feels like to see someone have to pick between showing up sick for work and not being able to pay the rent at the end of the month. She said that sick days and health care are human rights!

The other speakers also expressed solidarity. The one on the right is a regional representative, and thanked the many other SEIU locals for showing up and showing solidarity with the Palo Alto temps. She explained that Palo Alto is a leading community, and if Palo Alto does the right thing, it will set a useful precident for other towns to follow.

  

Then we marched around Palo Alto chanting noisily the whole way. Usually when marching I like to have a lot of short conversations with different people, but that wasn't easy this time. For one thing, the people with the bullhorns kept us chanting things from the sheet. For another thing, we were going two by two down the sidewalk, so changing your place in line wasn't easy.



The next day I found this article on the front page of the Palo Alto Daily News.